Green Bay’s Sept. 11 monument to be removed

Green Bay Press-Gazette

Green Bay's monument to the Twin Towers and those lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

GREEN BAY - The oft-criticized Sept. 11 monument along the Fox River in Green Bay will come down next month.

Green Bay City Council members on Tuesday night voted unanimously to approve the removal.

A ceremony is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 11, when honor guards will take the monument apart.

Under the plan, a steel beam from one of the original Twin Towers currently at the site will be displayed on a rotating basis between the Green Bay Police Department and the Green Bay Metro Fire Department.

The beam could then become part of a new Sept. 11 memorial that would be located inside a new public safety building, should such a building be constructed.

The remaining parts of the monument would be stored until a new design is chosen.

A 9/11 memorial group donated the monument to the city in 2005. While it was a well-intended gift, the monument has deteriorated substantially and has inaccurate information on it.

The monument’s marble base is not the kind that can withstand Wisconsin winters — most of the victims’ names etched in it are no longer legible — and it misidentifies the flights that were involved in the attacks.